Is Pillars of Eternity worth playing?

[lophiaspis]

Stop misleading people, the writing is probably the game's biggest flaw. Its more of a commercial product than a RPG, if McDonalds were to start making RPGs they would follow the exact same model as PoE.

It's hopeless, most posters on this forum are mediocre fanboys or anti-fanboys incapable of independent thought.

 

[Jvegi]

Is the itemization any better now than on release? Is clearing dungeons of trash mobs any less tiresome?

Those are the main reasons I'm not going back to it after getting a 64 bit system.

 

[Dwarvophile]

Come on, the writing does the job. It's not stellar, but with the graphics and music it contributes to create an interesting and believable world. You can see efforts have been made to weave an orginal context and story. And not just for the sake of being special, Tide of Nanana's way.

POE is a game I wanted (I still want) to like. But personally, everytime I come back to the game it's more the gameplay that gets in the way. I find it tedious and needlesly complex. Most spells are too forgettable and combat is a chore. The trashmobs, most fight encounters they just feels like arbitrary obstacles in the way of the story. The rest/camping system feels artificial and more convenient for the devs than it is for players.

Even after the white march expansion, which added some tactical level, gameplay remains the main flaw of this game in my opinion. And pathfinding, NPC's AI are still infuriating. Besides Tyranny just showed that all this couldn't be simplified without getting simplistic. So even if I still hope POE 2 will improve all this I still doubt it very much.

Take the crafting for exemple, does anybody find it fun ? I feel it's just there because a modern game should have some crafting. Some stuff here are just there for the sake of being there. I hope it won't be the same with multi-classes in POE2. Especially since the way char creation and building works in this game makes it feel irrelevant. You can already be a swords wizard or whatever you want regardless of class (nerdcommando's building guide is proof).

Contrary to some delusional people, I can deal with the fact that POE will never be Turn Based, but Baldur's Gate or Icewind's Dale combat's level of fun was just there, waiting to be reached and surpassed.

 

[mfkndggrfll]

Guess it falls down to what one considers to be good writing. When reading PoE's text it reminded me of my high school days when I used to pad my essays with filler to reach a certain word count. It really reeked of teenager fantasy novels I used to read too. Reading some parts of the dialogue made me cringe since the writing style was so unrefined.

I dont see how people can say that X DLC will fix the game when the biggest flaw is the writing. The magic of BG was in the writing and not the combat, I even found it tedious for the most part and only played for the story. If you want a RPG that looks like BG then go ahead but dont expect it to be comparable besides the looks.

Stop misleading people, the writing is probably the game's biggest flaw. Its more of a commercial product than a RPG, if McDonalds were to start making RPGs they would follow the exact same model as PoE.

Care to elaborate, Mrs. Alt? I have no idea what you are talking about. Bethesda and Bioware games are the McDonalds of RPGs. PoE has mature, quality writing. You have a well developed interesting lore (Aedyr, Dyrwood, Readceras, Valian Republics, wars for independence and different cultures, Engwithans and Glanfathans, indigenous savages vs incoming settlers, etc), a combination of reincarnation and various deities and science/animancy built on top of that, and the usual RPG secret cult/organization angle. The dialogue is a little heavy sometimes, but still pretty damn good by RPG standards. I haven't played through it yet, so I dunno, maybe it gets way worse later on, but so far, it's better than Baldur's Gate games. The only better written RPGs I can think of are PS:T and Mask of the Betrayer.

Bethesda also follows the Mc Donalds route but tries to maximize the quality of their games, or at least they used to. PoE on the other hand is trying to minimize the quality and maximize the profits. PoE does NOT have quality writing, it reminds me too much of my highschool days for that. Comparing PoE's writing to BG's shows that you probably never bothered to read a book outside of school work and is also heresy.

I looked at some PoE 2 screenshots and they all look blurry as hell, even BG2 looks better. If you compare google images of PoE 1 vs 2 (which I just did) you can see the level of detail is weaker compared to the 1. That means they are using their previous success to be lazier rather than raise the bar.

The game shows lazy effort from the very beginning when they find the PC an excuse to be away during the ambush rather than scripting a fight like a 20 years old RPG. From the very beginning you are surrounded by NPCs that the PC doesnt care about, and the game fails to make you care about anything past that point.

 

[FreeKaner]

Guess it falls down to what one considers to be good writing. When reading PoE's text it reminded me of my high school days when I used to pad my essays with filler to reach a certain word count. It really reeked of teenager fantasy novels I used to read too. Reading some parts of the dialogue made me cringe since the writing style was so unrefined.

I dont see how people can say that X DLC will fix the game when the biggest flaw is the writing. The magic of BG was in the writing and not the combat, I even found it tedious for the most part and only played for the story. If you want a RPG that looks like BG then go ahead but dont expect it to be comparable besides the looks.

Branching out from F2 vs. F3 eh? I should say though what you are saying is basically the consensus here, so don't expect many people to disagree with you except that combat is tedious part.

 

[CptMace]

The magic of BG was in the writing and not the combat

what

I like bg's style much - much more than poe, for sure, and as kaner said it's a solid consensus here and maybe on other forums.
But I don't understand what you mean there.

 

[mfkndggrfll]

Think of all the crappy encounters filled with generic monsters. The game had many memorable fights with a lot of filler inbetween. The bad pathing, the respawning monsters, moving a 6 man squad in 2 tiles wide corridors, spamming rest and minor heal, etc... Combat was good overall but the true magic was the MQ/writing.

 

[CptMace]

I still have no idea what you mean, dude. Forget about the combat, though you could have gained a lot of time summarizing its shortcomings by typing "rtwp". How's the writing "truly magic" in BG ?

 

[Infinitron]

Are you really gonna let this guy take over another thread

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

I had this gifted to me a while back and, with the expansion around the corner, gave it a try to see whether getting the expansion and doing a full playthrough would be worthwhile instead of waiting for the sequel. I’ve been going in completely blind and currently stopped at the beach with the kobolds, having just got Durance, and I’m still on the fence about it.

- The environments look gorgeous, though they’re a bit empty. It's definitely making me curious to explore.

- Loooaaaaadddddiiiiinnnnnggggg.

- The writing hasn’t impressed me so far. It’s adjective heaven without proper pacing or placing. The worst were the people in the first town into whose soul you can gaze: you get a chunk of text with no further interaction or hooks to it that seems completely disconnected from the town’s situation. You can also do this before you have the tree cutscene where you learn about your powers, so it’s weird how my character isn’t surprised by any of this. It all feels very out of place and I’m hoping they’re not important as I quickly started skipping them.

- The soul peeking seems like it could be fun. It reminds me of regaining memories in Torment, though it hasn’t been as evocative at this stage of the game. It’s clearly the change in the player character’s life that is supposed to kickstart the plot, but so far it feels more like a fairly normal ability rather than something life changing. I’m hoping this’ll change along the way.

- The companions I’ve seen have been boring shitheads, with Durance as the shining exception. The introduction fighter was an annoying asshole and the thief had no personality at all, so seeing them croak didn’t exactly motivate me to go get revenge on the villain. Of my ‘real’ partymembers, Aloth is a passive-aggressive cunt with nothing of worth to say and Eder reads like an edgy teenager trying to act like he’s world-weary.
Durance, however, is much more interesting than all the others: a racist missionary both judgmental and astute. He shows how to properly introduce a player to the lore of the setting by making his info dumps reflect how he sees the world, showcasing who he is while also bringing the world to life through him, instead of being painfully disconnected from his character (fuck you Eder). He feels like a Torment or Betrayer character in comparison to the Baldur’s Gate blandness of the others, though it helps that he has way more dialog to explore for some reason. I’m definitely keeping him in my party if I continue.

- Combat is a change of pace from D&D, though I’m not sure if I like it yet. It feels...floaty? Like my build choices are inconsequential. Could be that I just don’t have a feel for the game’s build archetypes yet, though, as I haven’t been paying much attention to the mechanics.

- Quests have been sort of dull. The best one was the temple under the town, but it I feel like it could have done a better job of showing me the Eothian mindset. Having Eder around especially felt like it should have been a lot more meaningful.

All in all, there’s been more meh than I hoped for, but there’s room for growth and finding Durance has given me hope that playing it might be worth it. Some of the things I’m interested in knowing: can I troll Durance by playing as an Eothian priest? Does being an Eothian have as much of an impact on the game as it feels like it should? By extension, are there any other meaningful starting options (being a Bleak Walker seems like it might very grim if it plays as advertised)? Are there more companions like Durance? Does the game improve in terms of writing quality, quest depth and encounter design? Does the story get more interesting and does it have a satisfying conclusion? Is this combat rewarding if you take the time to learn the systems?

No PoE is shit. Better play Underrail or something.

 

[Lord_Potato]

Are you really gonna let this guy take over another thread

Yes, that seems unwise.

If plagues cannot be healed, they should at least be contained in a small, isolated area.

 

[mfkndggrfll]

I still have no idea what you mean, dude. Forget about the combat, though you could have gained a lot of time summarizing its shortcomings by typing "rtwp". How's the writing "truly magic" in BG ?

I mean that pretty much every fight that didnt include a named NPC was forgettable. The combat was only fun when it offered challenge. For a completionist who explores every nook and cranny you always are 1-2 steps ahead of the enemy so that challenge disappears and you end up playing for the story.

The writing was balanced because it included only what you needed to know with no filler, and it didnt make me cringe. To the writing I include the narrator (BG1) which did an outstanding job. The voice actors were great too.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Take the crafting for exemple, does anybody find it fun ? I feel it's just there because a modern game should have some crafting.

It was a stretchgoal - "Check one more off the list!".

The fact that you have 8 or so recipes at the end of the manual, written by Tim Cain, who also made the crafting system tells you that someone had plans for it being an integral system to the game, but at some point Cain had to switch to working on the stronghold, and the crafting system remained rudimentary.

 

[CptMace]

I mean that pretty much every fight that didnt include a named NPC was forgettable. The combat was only fun when it offered challenge. For a completionist who explores every nook and cranny you always are 1-2 steps ahead of the enemy so that challenge disappears and you end up playing for the story.

The writing was balanced because it included only what you needed to know with no filler, and it didnt make me cringe. To the writing I include the narrator (BG1) which did an outstanding job. The voice actors were great too.

I'm starting to understand how your thread reached 50 pages.
I assume that 'balance' is indeed more fitting for bg's writing than 'magical'. Another word would be 'alright'.
I have no idea why you insist on stating the obvious about its combat, though. You had the occasion to talk about the writing, or why you find the main quest so well written. Shame.

I doubt that's where the magic of the game lies as you stated though. Bg simply has good free roaming hack n slash to offer. And its broken combat is tons of fun. Nobody really cares about the convenient letters which drive the very linear story. That's why I found your statement so surprising.

 

[Infantry]

Its more of a commercial product than a RPG, if McDonalds were to start making RPGs they would follow the exact same model as PoE.

Which would certainly receive a Presidential endorsement.

Spoiler

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

I think reading this thread I just realized why some of you think writing in PoE is shit (when it's really not). You guys actually read the Kickstarter NPC backstories, don't you?

That's what I did when I first started, and went, wtf is this shit? So then I remebered the Kickstarting thing, and even though it was kind of a bad idea by Obsidian to do something like that (mixing marketing with gameplay is always a no-no), I just started ignoring them. Fortunately, those NPCs have a slightly different color tag, so you can always tell who they are. Ignoring them eliminates all that crap writing which has nothing to do with the game.

As far as the actual game writing, I repeat, it's pretty damn good by RPG standards. I actually read a lot of books, including many classic lit books, and while PoE writing definitely has some issues (at times it's overly wordy and unnecessarrily descriptive), you have to remember, we are going by game/RPG standards here, not literature. There have been very few well written RPGs. Compared to its medium, PoE has a vastly more interesting written content than 95% of its competition, and the technical aspects of it, while flawed, are still decent enough to read.

Don't let the hivemind sway you. Quality game.

 

[AwesomeButton]

No, I didn't read the backer stories. The writing is just bad.

 

[mfkndggrfll]

''As far as the actual game writing, I repeat, it's pretty damn good by RPG standards''

If you include games like Skyrim and Fallout 4 maybe, but compared to the cRPG PoE tries to imitate its pretty bad. Compared to any kind of litterature its pretty bad too. The writing was simply botched and unrevised. It contains flaws that wouldnt pass in a high school essay. Torrent the game if you must try it but dont give a single penny to those devs. Or you can just buy through steam and refund it after you realize that its pretty bad, 2 hours should be more than enough for that.

 

[aweigh]

of course everything reminds you of high school since you're still in it.

 

[Lhynn]

Fallout 4 and skyrim had better writing than poe. Even in the loading screens.

 

[bminorkey]

Is the itemization any better now than on release?

much better

Is clearing dungeons of trash mobs any less tiresome?

nope

 

[Okagron]

of course everything reminds you of high school since you're still in it.

More like elementary school. And that's an insult to elementary students because i know a lot of them that are much smarter than him.

 

[mfkndggrfll]

You know a lot of them because you arent cool enough to hang with kids around your age. You're also a pedophile.

 

[Blackstaff]

I tried getting back into it those last few days for POE 2.

Nope. No luck.
The feeling is just about the same as when it released. It's like I want to like this game, but this game just doesn't want me to.

Combat, writing, quests, everything is just above the water at one point, far under it the next. I can't get into any kind of rythm to push me much farther than Defiance bay, whatever the type of build or team I try. The game unvariably ends up feeling agonizingly slow, dull and empty.

It feels a lot like Oblivion felt to me back then : I can't help but sink a ton of time at the beginning running behind the shadows of the great games that were there before (and still appear on the surface), but end up again and again feeling bored and empty handed after a few hours.

It's fucking strange, but it hurts far more than it should. I guess I will try the beginning of POE 2 and see if it's more than this monotone mess. Not getting my hopes very high though.

 

[Okagron]

You know a lot of them because you arent cool enough to hang with kids around your age. You're also a pedophile.

Nah, i only hang around people of my age and they're actual adults unlike you. And that's because you're still a child.

You're the one that isn't cool enough to hang around people your age (or any age for that matter) because no one wants to hang with a retard that spends their entire time on the internet crying that people still rank Fallout 2 over Fallout 3.